Can't Forgive Myself
by RipredtheGnawer
Summary: "And they're hauled into the Justice Building and you make your stiff legs walk in there, too, to wish your little brother luck and tell him that you hope to hell – because that's got to be the only thing watching over you – that he doesn't die." Solitude


**A/N: another one of my missed Starvation prompt things. This was really hard for me to write for two reasons. One, because I don't swear and this is my first written piece with curses, and two, because I've got a sister and I was imagining if this happened to her. She's younger than me.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned the Hunger Games, Cinna would be alive.**

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See, what you've got to understand is, I loved my brother. I always did. Some people think that siblings should get along perfectly, though – and we certainly didn't. Hell, we would argue like mad cats, so loud and long that the neighbors would knock on the door to see if we were dying. True story.

Maybe you're thinking that, hey, it's not so bad. You've got your whole life to make up, and what's the fuss, anyways? It's natural for brothers and sisters to be rivals. Maybe that's true, too, but it doesn't matter anymore. Because how was I supposed to anticipate what happened?

If I'd spent some time with him, told him I didn't mean half the god-awful things I said, I think I might sleep easier now. If I'd told him, just once, _just once_ in his life, that I loved him. Because, like I said before, I did.

I'm not sure where we went wrong, where we got off track and forgot how to start up again. Maybe it was the first Reaping day, or maybe it was even earlier than that. Whenever it was, however it happened, you're wrong if you don't think I regret it.

I wanted him gone. I wanted him out of my life so that I could shine. No, that's not it. I guess I was pretty outstanding even with him there, but what I really wanted was – Dammit, I don't even know anymore. I can't remember why I thought I hated him, only that I did.

Can you imagine something for a moment? Just take a few seconds to try to understand. You're a fourteen-year-old girl, and your little brother's twelve. It's a summer day and everyone's short-tempered from the heat, plus tired from working in the factories, and then short-tempered from fear besides. Your father doesn't care enough to stop the bickering, so you just keep going at each other until the mayor steps up and you have to can it. You're still simmering inside, so you don't listen and just think of what you're going to tell him later, how you're going to tease him.

It's all in fun, though it doesn't feel like that at the moment. None of it really matters, because you share a bedroom – ugh, how embarrassing – and as much as you fight, you're closer than anyone else is, or so you think. You harass and bother and call each other names, but at the end of the day, you tell each other good night and sweet dreams.

You're so full of annoyance, though, that you don't realize what's going on until he's already on the stage. On the stage – and a girl's beside him, so it's too late to save him even if you'd had the courage to do so. And they're hauled into the Justice Building and you make your stiff legs walk in there, too, to wish your little brother luck and tell him that you hope to hell – because that's got to be the only thing watching over you – that he doesn't die.

I can see it in your eyes, you think I'm despicable. You're right, I am. Could you please hold on to that feeling, we'll come back to it later.

You guessed right: that's my story. You imagined what happened to me thirty-six years ago. I tried to tell him good-bye but the words were caught in my throat so I just sat there while my father gave him a nice, long lecture on how he's been a good boy and how he's got to be brave and go down fighting. Like he'd already given up hope.

For the next week, you wait and see and hope with everything you've got that he makes it out alive. You swear that if he comes back, you'll never say another bad thing to him again, you'll give him whatever he wants, just _please_ let him live.

Except he doesn't, and you remember how you craved the silence without the whistling and pestering questions, and you hate yourself and him, too, now that you've been given that solitude.


End file.
